Oscar 2013 Predictions

One week from today will mark the 85th Academy Awards and it'll be another year to remember. The Oscars are a time to look back on all the movies from the past year and celebrate them all! Like every year, I make my predictions in several of the major categories.

Best Supporting Actor
Should win: Christoph Waltz or Robert DeNiro
Will win: Waltz

Christoph Waltz plays every role he is in perfectly and his role as Dr. King Schultz is no different. Making an enjoyable character really fun to watch on screen and help tell the story. It was great to see Robert DeNiro playing a more powerful role than his other recent roles. Proving he still has his acting chops about him. It'd be great to see him win. And finally there's Tommy Lee Jones, who worked well in Lincoln and showed audiences how difficult compromising politically was in those times, but I don't think this is his year.

Best Supporting Actress
Should and will win (without question): Anne Hathaway

Using the live singing to its fullest, she nearly steals the entire movie with her brief time on screen. Showing anguish, pain, and a little bit of hope, Hathaway as Fantine blew this role out of the water and showed that she can get serious when she's not flirting with death as Selina Kyle in The Dark Knight Rises.

Best Screenplay
Should win: Django Unchained
Will win: Django Unchained

Possibly one of Quentin Tarantino's best scripts, I think it will take home the Oscar for best screenplay this year. With creative dialogue he sets up his gruesome violence, which he's known for, and makes you laugh when the violence is directed at slave owners/drivers. Only screenplay that might beat this out is Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom. His story of young love holds true to his quirky style of humor and show an odd take on the first love of two young children.

Best Adapted Screenplay:
Should win: Lincoln or Silver Linings Playbook
Will win: Argo

Having not read any of the things these stories are based on, I am looking at them solely based on the translation to the screen. Nothing can stop the Academy and every other award show giving the award to Argo, probably to make up for the fact that Affleck wasn't nominated for best director. That's why it'll win this award. It's not the best movie of the year. The most deserving of this award is Silver Linings Playbook. I didn't know it would be such an enjoyable film. Every twist and line of dialogue combined with the various extreme characters, made this a ton of fun to watch from beginning to end. Lincoln on the other hand is equally as good as Playbook, but much more dramatic and slow-paced. The part of Lincoln is seemingly written directly for Daniel Day-Lewis, much like his last award winning role as Daniel Plainview in There Will Be Blood.


Best Director:
Should win: David O. Russell
Will win: Steven Spielberg

With Affleck getting snubbed for this category, it could very feasibly fall into the hands of Steven Spielberg, again. Spielberg is a master of storytelling and he deserves this nomination as much as anyone. However, I'd like to see a comedic director win and Sliver Linings Playbook is just the movie that could do it.

Best Actress:
Should and will win: Jennifer Lawrence

Many critics claim that Jessica Chastain's performance in Zero Dark Thirty is the best female performance of the year, but that is simply not true. Jennifer Lawrence is more passionate and embraces her character's crazy side. She plays Tiffany, a recent widow, dealing with her new found intimacy issues. At the most pivotal moment she proves that she cares about Pat (Bradley Cooper) and does what Pat can't: stand up to his father Pat Sr. (Robert DeNiro). She sells this moment of genius absolutely perfectly. Lawrence fulfills what it means to be a best actress, whereas Jessica Chastain has very brief explosions of emotion that generally do nothing for the character.

Best Actor:
Should and will win: Daniel Day-Lewis

The Academy can make history this year. If Daniel Day-Lewis he will become the first actor to win this award three times. Only Walter Brennan (three times for best supporting actor) and Jack Nicholson (two for lead actor, one for supporting actor) have won three acting Oscars. Who is more deserving of this honor than Daniel Day-Lewis. A character actor who always finds a way to embody his character, whether it is a writer/painter who can only move his left foot (My Left Foot 1989), a gang leading butcher (Gangs of New York, 2002), or his most recent best actor win as a greedy oil prospector (There Will Be Blood, 2007). His acting can't be beat. And this year is no different. On screen there is no actor, no Daniel Day-Lewis. There is only Abraham Lincoln. He and Sally Field reportedly would text each other only in 1850s language to never be out of character. 

The only performance I could see beating him out would be Bradley Cooper, but that's probably only because I enjoyed Silver Linings Playbook immensely.

Best Picture:

Who will walk away with the biggest prize of the night? Again, critics and other award shows would have you believe that Argo is the best movie of the year, but it might only win to give Ben Affleck some redemption. However it's rare that a movie wins best picture without being nominated in the directing category. But Hollywood loves nothing more than a movie revolving around the production of movies (Last year's The Artist, proved that). While I do agree that Argo is good, it just didn't hit everything I feel a best picture should. There were very few characters I related to, believed, or cared about.

Amour, Life of Pi, and Les Misérables will all fall short due to the nature of the awards. Amour shouldn't win because it will handily take the best foreign film award. Life of Pi ends too ambiguously in my opinion, though the Academy often likes ambiguous endings. Being visually stunning isn't always enough to win. And Les Mis is fine, but it felt too much like watching a stage production, which kind of defeats the purpose of it being a movie.

Django Unchained and Beasts of the Southern Wild are the two dark horses this year. A charming performance by new comer and youngest nominee (at five years old) Quvenzhané Wallis, which carries the entire film, is endearing enough that I think it could take everyone by surprise and win the grand prize. Quentin Tarantino's films have been on the cusp of winning best picture a few times in his career. Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds being the other two. Django has the acting chops, outstanding directing, and great dialogue that it could win, though the lacking best director nomination almost discounts Django from winning, much like Argo.

The final three had been the top three pictures leading into award season, but the late run by Argo winning lots of awards has changed that. Unfortunately for fans of Kathryn Bigelow's Zero Dark Thirty politics have all but killed any momentum it could have gained. Arguments over the portrayal of information-getting tactics among other things turned many voters in the Academy away. The most deserving of this award, to me, is Lincoln. Usually I'm not a fan of period dramas, but it was so expertly crafted and acted that I can't help, but hope it beats all the other movies out. Then there's Silver Linings Playbook, and if you haven't caught on, this was my favorite of the best picture nominees by far. Endearing, relatable characters, a great underdog story, and entertaining dialogue make this a movie that won't soon be forgotten.

Will win: Lincoln
Should win: Lincoln

Who I'd like to see win: Silver Linings Playbook

There you have it. Another great year of movies will soon come to a close, opening the door for the blockbusters (Iron Man 3) and new horror movies (like last year's Cabin in the Woods). But looking back there are a few movies that were completely snubbed as there are every year. The Dark Knight Rises rounding out Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, should have received a few nominations including best picture, just based on how great the entire trilogy was. Sure the acting wasn't always the best, but Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy played two incredibly menacing villains. The Avengers, while being comic-book fanboys wet dreams, is only nominated for best visual effects and it will probably lose to Life of Pi.

Les Misérables

When driving to a movie theater, what do you want to see? A film or a theatrical production? My thought is that no matter what, you'd want to see a movie. Anyway Les Mis is great for what it is, basically a filming of the stage play.

A story seen in many different iterations, from original stage play to actual movie and finally to a filmed version of the musical. It has been done well in each version and I've seen all three. Easily the best one is this one. Only a few roles utilize the live singing to its full potential, but when it works, it shines incredibly brightly.

Starting with Anne Hathaway's singing of 'I Dreamed a Dream,' it is unparalleled by any other song in the movie. Powerfully sung and depressingly beautifully acted, she nails this song on the head and upped the ante for the songs later in the movie. Only matched by Samantha Barks' performance of 'On My Own.' This is what the live singing should be used for: emotional performances. The other performances worth noting are Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bohnam Carter. Adding the only humor to the story.

Aside from the singing, the acting was outstanding. Anguish, anger, and ambivalence abound throughout this dark and dreary musical. Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe are stupendous as the two main characters, even though Javert appears much too "magically" in this film. However this is more the original story's fault. How, over such a span of time, is one man supposed to inadvertently run into the man he is searching for?

Much of the acting is exactly what it needs to be, depressing and desolate. It works very well throughout, but far too many of the actors are singing just outside of their range and it shows in their facial expressions. In a stage play if you're singing out of your range you won't get the job, so why does it work on the screen? I don't have an answer for that. It's almost painful at times to see the straining in the actor's faces, only from the singing, not because they are identifying with the words.

Aside from the strain in the actors' faces there is not much else wrong with the movie. It would have been much better had they made it more of a musical instead of an opera. The only difference being actual dialogue versus constant singing. I wish there would have been more dialogue, though I know the stage musical didn't have much, if any, dialogue, but instead of singing with an annoying simple melody is worse than stopping your singing to actually speak.

Overall, it's a good adaptation of the musical, but the director needed to make his mind up whether to make his own version of Les Misérables or to copy, almost directly, the stage musical. In this case he chose to film the stage musical.

7/10

Dark Knight Rises

I have started this post at 3:54 am, the morning of July 20th. Or more accurately the day I've been waiting for for nearly a year, anticipating the glorious end to a great trilogy.

My previous favorite movie theater experience was a stereotypical event that many people would find irritating. I saw Wolf Creek in Mayfair mall at night. While at the theater the other spectators were yelling at the screen, which I loved! However this triple-feature at least tied that. In between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight we had trivia and between each of the movies we had a jolly old man come in and introduce the next film. It was also filled with some big Batman nerds, which made the experience that much greater. And I should say that midnight showings are nearly sacred to me. I LOVE midnight showings, the entire atmosphere is just better at these showings.

The third act of this trilogy is one of the better third acts I've ever seen. My opinion could be swayed due to my viewing of the entire trilogy in theaters. This was the first time I've ever done an in-theater movie marathon before and I'm happy this was the one I chose to see. The Dark Knight Rises tied in so closely and so well with the first two that having just seen them a mere six hours before the midnight premiere made the tie-ins that much more apparent. Many of the similarities were in the dialogue and a few flashbacks, but what set this apart in the trilogy was the cast.

The characters in every movie have had great performances (i.e. Joker/Heath Ledger). However, every character of this film has a perfect actor or actress who should have portrayed them and in true Christopher Nolan fashion each received his or her perfect fit. Whether it was newcomers Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway) or John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) or old favorites Jim Gordon (Gary Oldman) or Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman) the actors were pitch perfect. Ladies and gentlemen we have a Catwoman that I actually liked! Not just a sex symbol, but a real character, Hathaway showed some grit in her performance as the jewel thief. For a comic book movie the characters felt real and not just like they were straight off the pages of a book.

What was really weighing on this film for many moviegoers was the villain, Bane. If you remember back to the first two trailers, his voice was nearly unintelligible and their best solution was to re-dub the film. It was the best solution and only strayed into the unbelievable and almost annoying once. Annoying may not even be the right word, but it got a bit high for a big guy like Bane. I simply cannot write a review without mentioning how Tom Hardy compared to Heath Ledger's Joker. Seeing as how the two villains are nearly polar opposites (one more physical and the other playing a more mental game) they were both great performances. Aside from Hardy's voice his performance gave me chills. I had to get picky to even think of this one incident.

As for the action, what would a Christopher Nolan Batman movie be without a lot of action? From the many new gadgets and the old ones he brought back were great fun to watch on screen. It was a terrific blend of action, character development, and story. So perfect that Nolan almost achieved something only two things have accomplished before: getting me to cry. I know I'm not the only one in the theater who was close to tears, and I don't care either. It was that good.

There are plenty of twists and turns that, while sometimes guessable, are much more fun to just let them happen. Replete with many jaw dropping, "aha," and "oh my god, did that really happen?" moments, Overall I thought it was a near perfect end to an outstanding trilogy. The Dark Knight Rises is the summer movie event I've been waiting for. I cannot wait to see it a few more times in the theaters. 

9.5/10